


Recollect

by Mischief_Tea



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Guilt, Hugs, Mothering, Nightmares, Self-Loathing, Sleep Deprivation, boy just needs a moment, cat son needs more cookies, dark cupid - Freeform, implied Adrinette maybe, suppressed memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 15:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischief_Tea/pseuds/Mischief_Tea
Summary: Adrien’s been having some strangely vivid nightmares lately, and not all of him is certain that they’re only dreams…





	Recollect

**Author's Note:**

> In which I exercise my headcanon that memory loss in akuma victims and akuma victims' victims may not be so much wiped as merely buried in their subconscious.
> 
> post-Dark Cupid 
> 
> [I am going by the episode order on the Miraculous wikia page,  
> so both Timebreaker and Lady Wifi have already transpired]

It had been three days since Valentine’s Day, and in those three days, Adrien had gotten less than 10 hours of sleep. He could have made up for some part of it the last night if it hadn’t been for a scheduled patrol with Ladybug. Sleepless or not Chat Noir wouldn’t miss a date with his Lady for the world.  
   
The fact that she was most recently a contributing factor to his sleeplessness in a less-than-pleasant way was no deterrent. It did, however, make him hyper-aware of the way she was avoiding looking him in the eye as they made their rounds of the city. And that, in turn, made him anxious and irritable.  
   
 After tripping off of a building twice and repeatedly spacing out staring at his own hands, Ladybug had called the patrol to an early close with exasperated admonitions to go home and rest. He had laughingly tried to apologize and bid her a good night.  
   
But his rest was not restful.  
   
He was, for perhaps his first time since attending the _collège_ , early to class.  
   
Several rows behind him, Kim and Max had gotten into a conversation about Kim's lack of memories as Dark Cupid. Alix, having just arrived and settled in herself, spoke up abruptly.  
“I don’t remember anything either, not like a normal memory anyway. But sometimes I dream about it. It’s strange…”  
   
“Adrien - you all right, dude?”  
   
Adrien’s head jerked upright from where he’d been staring, unfocused, at where his right hand was reached halfway into his bag . He quickly mustered up a warm smile for his best friend and finished pulling out his supplies. “Huh? Oh, yeah. I was just going over that history test from yesterday in my head. I suddenly think I missed an answer.”  
   
Nino quirked an eyebrow in mock disbelief.  
   
“With your perfect scores? Not a chance, dude. I’m sure you did fine.”  
   
Adrien let his smile grow more genuine, grateful for the intended support.  
   
“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right. Thanks, Nino.”  
   
He swallowed back the cold feeling that seemed to have settled in his gut.  
   
   
-  
   
_sometimes I dream about it_  
   
It had been four days since the last akuma attack.  
   
The more the day dragged on the less Adrien believed in coincidences. He’d read up on the incident on the Ladyblog, of course, looking for clues. Anything that might explain or disprove his suspicions. But no one had seen Chat Noir’s akuma-energy-induced betrayal up close. Shouts of conflict from the street. Glimpses from cars passing the park where he’d come back to himself. But nothing to explain that split second of terror in her eyes, like he’d never seen on her, like he couldn’t imagine...  
   
And Ladybug had been acting weird around him.  
   
He went to pass one hand over his eyes and then sharply stopped himself before remembering that he hadn’t been in yet for makeup. Talk about losing focus. This was going to be another long day. He found himself surprisingly wishing for no more akuma attacks for a few days. He didn’t want to just end up being a liability…  
   
_as if you could stop yourself_  
   
“Good afternoon, Monsieur Agreste. I see I have my work cut out for me.”  
   
“ _Désolé_ , Élodie. Oh, how was your trip?...”  
   
   
-  
   
One sleep-deprived photo shoot, a somewhat sloppy round of fencing practice, and two scheduled fittings later, Adrien was finally free to return to “extracurriculars”. Like public school.  
   
Or, in this case, a late afternoon over at the Dupain-Chengs.  
   
Since he’d missed a full day of lectures Mme Bustier had arranged for him to pick up his notes and assignments from a classmate. As class president that job had fallen to Marinette, and since they’d been assigned a minor group project that morning, she had also volunteered (at no small protest from Chloe and no small encouragement from Alya) to be teamed up with him for the sake of convenience. And while thankful that it meant putting off his return to the mansion, he was aware that he was hardly in any condition to study effectively.  
   
The bakery was closing for the day. Walking through the doors he almost considered just picking up his notes, giving a brief apology, and then leaving to get some rest, but before the door had even swung shut Tom’s booming voice was directed into the back room.  
   
“Your friend is here, Marinette! I’ll finish those; come take him on upstairs while I lock up.”  
   
Marinette’s voice was unmistakable although Adrien couldn’t make out the words contained in what sounded like a yelp of surprise.  
   
“And make sure you grab a box of those left overs for the two of you - he looks hungry!”  
   
Adrien opened his mouth and closed it, the excuse to come and go quickly dying on his tongue even as Monsieur Dupain gave him a hearty clap on the back and walked to lock up the storefront doors.  
   
“Go on ahead. She’ll be right there.”  
   
   
-  
   
Three minutes later Adrien was following Marinette into the Dupain-Cheng home.  
   
Her mother Sabine was sitting in the living room with one ankle propped up. Adrien’s face immediately dropped into one of concern and she chuckled at the expression.  
   
“Adrien! How have you been? We expected you to be over more frequently after your last visit with Marinette!”  
   
Adrien felt his eyebrows raise involuntarily as he was caught off guard. He hadn’t quite realized the sincerity of their open invitation although it had been given repeatedly over the course of their last school project.  
   
Steering clear of awkwardness he put on a relaxed posture and rubbed the back of his neck, somewhat abashed. “Well, um, my father has had me pretty busy this month modelling the new Spring line.”  
   
Sabine nodded knowingly. Marinette had been exceptionally vocal about her conflicted feelings being torn between praise for this year’s innovative designs and agonizing over the number of hours that it seemed to pull her crush out of school.  
   
Her daughter, perhaps fortuitously, didn’t notice, instead leaning in careful not to disturb the icepack and giving her mother a quick hug around the shoulders.  
   
“What happened to your ankle, maman?”  
   
Sabine gave her a tired smile.  
   
“It seems bad luck’s come calling today. I slipped pulling down a tray of tarts.”  
   
“After I said I’d get it myself,” Tom threw in reprovingly as he came in from the bakery below, “And normally she’s the graceful one, no less!”  
   
He softened it with a loving smirk at his wife, reciprocated in full, before turning his attention to his daughter.  
   
“Sorry to pull you back downstairs, chou-chou, but I need a hand unloading the truck since your mother is down for the count. It’s a small order this week since we were so over-prepared for St. Valentine’s Day.”  
   
“Of course, Papa.” Marinette answered, as both she and Tom gave Adrien an apologetic look.  
   
“I’ll help!” He offered immediately, but Sabine cut in.  
   
“Oh, no, Adrien! You’re a guest! Why don’t you stay and keep me company for a few minutes?”  
   
The boy shifted on his feet as though he wanted to protest, but didn’t know how to do so without offending. Marinette gave him an encouraging sort of half-smile as she followed her father down the stairs.  
   
Sabine was talking, but somehow he couldn’t quite sort out the words at first. News, school, the Valentine’s Day rush…  
   
“...thank you again for being so considerate of Marinette. She has had such a good year this year. I don’t think she’s ever had so many friends.”  
   
“Oh, it’s no problem at all, Mme Cheng,” Adrien responded, flashing a tiny satisfied smile at her before his attention appeared to drift back to the window behind her. The shadows were growing longer and the warm light hit the streets below and the tops of Parisian rooftops, reflecting in window panes across the avenue.  
   
“It’s good that we have our heroes to protect us. This certainly could have been a trying year if not for them.”  
   
She let out a small breath of air when Adrien politely agreed with a dazzling wholeheartedness that was too picture-perfect to be believable. This time she let the conversation drift into silence, taking a moment to study the boy that had captured so much of her daughter’s attention.  
   
Adrien was still standing, angled in the direction that Marinette had exited several minutes ago. Sabine gave a thoughtful squint of consideration. His young face, while ultimately pleasant and deceptively relaxed, held tension around the corners of his mouth and traces of a scowl between his eyebrows. After several seconds of silence he turned back toward her as if just now realizing that it would be a while before Marinette reappeared.  
   
“Please, feel free to take a seat.” She gestured from her place to a spot on the adjacent couch.  
   
Adrien sat.  
   
It occurred to him finally that Sabine probably just wanted to talk to someone after being stuck up here all day unable to help run the shop. Realizing that he was possibly bordering on rudeness for being unsociable, he scrambled to pick up on whatever Sabine had just been saying a moment ago.  
   
“Ladybug certainly is amazing.” Although it was light conversation, he said it with conviction. Only an instant later feeling a flutter of distress slip through his chest at a half-remembered image. Something of it must have shown on his face, because Sabine frowned slightly.  
   
“Now then, what’s bothering you?”  
   
Even looking right at her he hadn’t expected such a direct question of his emotional state, and the usual “oh nothing”s and “it’s fine”s all choked up in his throat as he suddenly hoped that Marinette didn’t choose that exact moment to come back up the stairs.  
   
“M- madame Cheng, why do you ask that?” He had the wry impression that he was failing miserably at playing it cool. Then again, if Marinette’s mother was any bit as sharp as her daughter then it was already likely a lost cause.  
   
Sabine only smiled gently, neatly folding her hands in her lap.  
   
“Adrien, you’ve been staring at my curtains every time someone is speaking to you since you came in. Either you are suddenly quite infatuated with my skills of interior decorating or your mind is otherwise preoccupied.”  
   
Adrien said nothing, ducking his head and pressing his hands flat against his knees.  
   
“Besides,” she continued even more gently, “Marinette’s been worried about you.”  
   
He bit the inside of his lip.  
   
“Oh.”  
   
A shudder of exhaustion seemed to flow up through his mind, as though it had been held back only by his unwillingness to acknowledge its existence. He resisted the urge to curl in on himself, but straightened up, and tried to position himself to appear less vulnerable than he currently felt.  
   
“It’s, ah…” That soft look was still on her face and it was making it hard for him to batten everything back down. “Um…”  
   
_Ladybug’s face flying past his hand. Dark energy skittering past the tips of her hair. His heartbeat unnaturally slow and heavy for all that he was filled with sickly sweet **rage**_  
   
Adrien’s face froze in a false neutral for a split second before it broke. He couldn’t just stay silent. Not when this kind, earnest, woman… this mother, was being so patient, so concerned. He flushed with a sting humiliation.  
   
“Honestly I haven’t been sleeping well… lately…”  
   
He really very much intended to stop there, but it was like a cork had been pulled from a very full bottle and all the insecurity and horror wanted to come rushing out of it. The words poured out before he could tip them back.  
   
“I know you mentioned the recent akuma attacks, and that some of them have come pretty close to the bakery. I- well, that is- I’ve been pretty close to some of them myself. Some of them I even got caught up, I mean, a lot of people did… get caught up I mean… in the effects of the akuma’s power. It-” his voice choked off involuntarily and he struggled to explain himself, abruptly wanting to backpedal out of the conversation. This...was not appropriate conversation to be having during a friendly visit with his friend’s parents.  
   
He pulled a laugh up from his gut but it sounded weak. “I’m sorry. This isn’t- ha - you were probably just asking to be polite. I seem to be really half asleep today after all! Haha.”  
   
Sabine hummed slightly in a way that very much reminded Adrien of Marinette, then lowered her injured foot to the floor and began to carefully stand. Adrien shot to his feet and immediately offered a hand. “Oh! Here, let me help.”  
   
After helping the woman, who while grown was still hardly taller than he was, to the kitchen, Adrien found himself continuing to feel a little off-balance.  
   
Madame Cheng offered him a cookie. Despite the very unusual spin of his day, his eyes lit up at the prospect of food. He accepted a square of chocolate chip shortbread and tried to regain his mental equilibrium as he finished it off.  
   
“Thank you.”  
   
It didn’t last.  
   
“Did you remember something?”  
   
Adrien’s voice seemed to once again betray him. It finally crept out as a whisper.  
   
“How did you know?”  
   
Sabine didn’t seem phased, leaning with her back to the counter to take weight off of her ankle. Her lips pursed in dry amusement.  
   
“You aren’t Marinette’s only friend.”  
   
Oh....Right.  
**_Alya._**  
   
And right then he decided that he needed to confide this, this one thing, in Marinette’s mother. Because she already understood. Because, if for no reason other than that he was her daughter’s classmate and perhaps friend, she seemed to care. Because if he didn’t, his fears and half-memories would eat him alive and leave him too exhausted to function.  
   
His gaze slid back toward the far window.  
   
…  
   
“Sometimes I wonder about what would happen if only this one thing went very wrong.”  
   
_‘I wonder what would happen if I applied Cataclysm to a living person.’_  
   
“But I never meant for those thoughts to become reality.”  
   
_‘It’s dangerous to think like that, Adrien.’_  
   
“But those...possibilities… actually… I...”  
   
_‘I just wonder sometimes, Plagg. You know me, I’d never-’_  
   
“I almost hurt Ladybug.”  
   
_I almost killed Ladybug._  
   
The utter disgust he felt at saying it aloud made it hard to face her, even knowing, in his head, that she was not looking at him with the same condemnation as he felt within himself.  
   
“Oh, sweetheart…” He didn’t quite look at her but he could hear the honest sympathy in the adult’s voice.    
   
He gave into it.  
   
“I didn’t know,” he started. “When it happened. I mean, I don’t have a clear memory of it happening. I was- I let myself get in harm’s way like a fool and M- L- Ll-ladybug didn’t realize that the akuma had gotten control of my- of me. And she almost - I could have almost…”  
   
The fragments of what he’d dreamed and pieces together from the reports had coalesced to paint a picture too awful for him to explain without revealing his identity as Chat Noir. But the news was full of reports of men and women across the city spurning or assaulting loved-ones as a result of Dark Cupid’s arrows. Madame Cheng didn’t have to know the details to know that any one of them could have easily been turned against Paris’ heroes.  
   
“I think I really did something horrible...and now it’s coming back piece by piece. I know it’s over. I know she won and we’re safe and- and even Kim is perfectly fine now! But when I close my eyes all I see is that moment. I’ve keep waking up from it. And sometimes, the dreams don’t play out right. She doesn’t make it. No one makes it. That’s…” he found himself trying to verbally correct what he himself knew wasn’t true, “...that’s not what happened. She saved the whole city like always. And I…” he articulated it carefully, feeling like he was speaking a foreign language. “I would never, _ever_ do anything to hurt Ladybug. N- never…”  
   
Somewhere in the midst of it Sabine had pulled him into an unassuming hug, mindful that Tom or Marinette could be returning soon and that she didn’t want to leave the boy feeling humiliated in front of his classmate. He clung for a moment and she gave his shoulders a comforting pat before he pulled away, visibly settling as some of the distress melted away. She handed him another cookie and started picking her way back toward the couch. Adrien once again held out an arm for support.  
   
“I’m grateful that Marinette has such a pure-hearted friend.” She said as he helped her get reseated. The boy’s eyes widened and a modest blush appeared even as footsteps tumbled up the stairs outside.  
   
“I’msorrywetooksolong!” Marinette came bursting breathlessly through the door, balancing a pastry box in one hand. Adrien gave Sabine a grateful look as Marinette started towards the stairs to her room.  
   
“Papa said we could have these croissants - do you like croissants?”  
   
Adrien started to follow her even as she spotted the clock and yelped. “It’s already 6:30! When do you have to leave? Should we re-schedule? I’ve already taken notes from all of the books I checked out if you need to take them with you-”  
   
“The Gorilla doesn’t pick me up until 8, we’ve got plenty of time to work on it here,” Adrien reassured her. The girl gave a huff of relief and the two of them headed upstairs, Marinette in a knot of nervous energy. Before he followed her out of sight, Adrien bit his lip and turned back to look Sabine in the eye.  
   
“Thank you.” He said earnestly.  
   
She just returned with a smile and a little wave after her daughter. Adrien returned it with a glancing smile of his own and disappeared up into the room.

**Author's Note:**

> Tadaaaa~! I wrote an actual thing be proud of me frens. \ (@. @) /  
> ...
> 
> It was 4:30 AM when I finished this. Success but at what price.
> 
> This is a one-shot in case that wasn't clear.
> 
> I will leave it up to you to decide how much Sabine really knows. She seems oddly astute in dealing with the situation despite how vague Adrien's being, but I could just as easily see that as just being her way... :)


End file.
